how can land use decisions enhance water sustainability?

ecohydrology | hydrogeology | socio-environmental synthesis

Feeling good after another successful harvest

Welcome! My name's Sam, and I'm a Postdoctoral Fellow splitting my time between the University of Victoria and McGill University, working with Tom Gleeson (UVic) and Jeff McKenzie (McGill). I received my Ph.D. in Freshwater & Marine Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in December 2015. As an ecohydrologist, my expertise is in monitoring and modeling the movement of water and energy at the land surface and subsurface, including both saturated and unsaturated flow. I use an interdisciplinary toolbox integrating field observations, remote sensing, and process-based numerical modelling.

I am motivated by the question, how can society make land use, land cover, and land management decisions which protect water resources and enhance the provision of ecosystem services? I am particularly interested in the unintended or indirect impacts of land use change on ecosystems resulting from altered groundwater flow.

Three core beliefs underlie my research.

Local solutions are required to achieve global sustainability goals. As such, I work at scales ranging from sub-field to continental and collaborate with a wide international network including scientists in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Germany, and Australia.

Working across disciplines is an essential part of the modern scientist's toolbox.I am a deliberately interdisciplinary scientist, and my work spans the fields of hydrogeology, hydrology, ecology, soil science, agronomy, and environmental biophysics. This gives me the unique opportunity to develop expertise in the hydrological sciences while leveraging the resources of several disciplines to ask novel questions only answerable via transdisciplinary collaborations.

Scientists must engage with non-academic audiences. My dissertation and postdoctoral research included collaborations with diverse agricultural, utility, and industry partners, and I engage with the general public as a regular contributor to the Water Underground blog (part of the AGU/EGU blogosphere) and via scientific social media.

​Please find more information about my research on this website, or contact me any time!